The Secret Weapon of Retail Store Success: Healthy Store Culture and Happier Employees

Last year, a client came to me with a problem. He was frustrated because his retail store was not performing as well as he wanted. Despite his efforts to drive higher levels of accountability within his retail stores, he felt that little progress was being made around improving cleanliness, organization, and customer service. He would often have conversations with employees about job assignments. They would address the items he talked with them about but put in no extra effort to address other problems in the store that were visible and impacting customer satisfaction. He came to me seeking a way to transform the culture within his stores.

We spent some time talking about his current approach. On a typical day, he would walk into the store, observe job assignments that had not been completed, and challenge the employees on why they were not getting more done. He would do this before saying hello, asking employees how they were doing, or acknowledging any progress they made since his last visit.

This conversation prompted me to ask the store owner, 

"How do you want your employees to feel when interacting with you?". 

After some thought, the owner said he would like them to feel motivated after interacting with him. He talked about his previous experience as an employee and how he worked hardest when he had a good relationship with his boss. He shared that his relationship with his boss was based on trust earned over time because his boss genuinely showed care and respect for him and the rest of his teammates. With this insight, we crafted a new approach to engaging with employees.

Four actions to improve retail store culture.

1. He brought civility to the workplace. Instead of the owner coming in and jumping straight into business, I encouraged him to take things slower. He began to say hello to employees, ask them how their days were going, and about their families and life outside of work.

2. He began to recognize small wins. Instead of focusing on all of the things the employees did not get done, he started to thank them for the small improvements they were making. The employees began to feel more appreciated and took more pride in completing tasks.

3. He started to delegate more responsibilities to his manager. Instead of being the primary person holding employees accountable, he began to have more conversations with his manager about store performance and the manager's role in ensuring that employees were completing tasks.

4. He invested time in training employees how to execute tasks to his expectations. When he observed that job assignments were not being completed to his expectations, he would check with the employees to understand if they knew the best way to complete the task. He would teach them how to complete the task efficiently and effectively if they did not.

The impact of happier employees.

These simple behavioral changes lead to cultural change within the store. Over the course of four months, the owner reported that the overall feel of the store changed. Employees seemed

• happier to come into work

• improved their execution of job duties

• began to greet the owner by showing him what they had accomplished while he was gone

This change happened without the owner having to fire any employees or implement special incentives. He was able to start store culture change by

• treating the employees with more dignity and respect

• demonstrating appreciation for small wins

• empowering his employees to take more responsibility for store conditions

• ensuring they were adequately trained

By changing how he interacted with his employees, the owner was able to transform the culture within the store, which led to improved customer experience and higher sales.

Summary

Being a store owner is challenging. It is especially difficult when the employees who work for you are not motivated to perform at a high level. One of the secrets to success as a business owner is to manage your employees based on their potential. Your employees are capable of exceeding your expectations when you provide the resources and environment they need to thrive. Just like a rose will not grow with proper water, soil, and sunlight, your employees need direction, training, and positive reinforcement if they are going to reach their potential. The time you dedicate to building a great organizational culture will unlock the potential of your employees and organization.

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Thank you for reading this blog

As an executive coach and small business consultant, I guide small business owners and business professionals in achieving their professional and business goals.

Whether you want to start, transform, or improve your business or career, I can help you magnify your strengths, minimize weaknesses, identify threats, and take advantage of opportunities.

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Email: dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

3 Skills You Need for Managing Organizational Change.

Are you facing changes in your workplace that make you feel uncertain about how to navigate your career? You are not alone. Organizational restructuring and management turnover are happening at rates not seen since the last recession, creating heightened uncertainty in the workplace. As companies seek to keep up with AI advancements, rising costs, and tightening capital markets, more pressure is being put on employees to deliver higher results without incurring incremental costs.

Three skills you need to master

If you are in a situation where your role is changing significantly, there are three skills you need to master to position yourself for success.

Clarifying Expectations

Leveraging Your Network

Securing Resources

Clarifying Expectations

Everyone must be on the same page regarding expectations when roles and responsibilities change at work. Sit down with your leader, and ensure you understand what they want you to accomplish. Getting clarity on desired outcomes and operating parameters can help you to understand what is important and the actions you are empowered to take to deliver against expectations.

If you are taking on an expanded role, understand if any tasks will be deprioritized or completely divested. As a rule, if you are currently working at capacity, you can only take on additional work if some of your previous work is removed.

When collaborating with clients, I frequently use a full teacup as a metaphor for capacity. If a teacup is full to the brim, and you add a tea bag, the cup will overflow and make a mess.

To make tea without creating a mess, leave some room for the teabag. By sitting down with your leader, discussing your current duties, and aligning with them on what tasks will be removed, you create the capacity to accomplish your goals without making a mess.

Leverage Your Network

The second skill you want to leverage is accessing your support network. Take a 360-degree look at those around you. Who might have skills, knowledge, or insights to help you navigate your new environment successfully?

Employees frequently struggle with change because they are unwilling to communicate to those around them that they need help. Part of the benefit of working within an organization is collaborating with people with a shared mission. Connect with others within your organization, share your challenges, and request assistance.

By casting a wide net and taking in feedback from multiple sources, you can gain clarity on the actions you need to take to thrive within your organization. You can also establish strategic partnerships that will allow you to exchange value with your co-workers for mutual benefit.

Secure Resources

The third skill you want to use is securing resources. You can do this by starting with the end in mind. Define the ideal end state, and craft a plan to take you from where you are today to where you want to be. Then devise a strategy for gaining what you need to accomplish your goals.

When change occurs, it is vital to determine resource needs. For example, if you were planning a road trip to the beach, you would take the time to decide how you would get there, along with what items you

would need to bring to have a safe trip. You would take time to plan the trip to ensure you have enough gas, drink, food, sunblock, and other niceties necessary to make it to your destination and enjoy yourself once you get there.

Similarly, pausing to determine what resources you will need to navigate organizational change will help you reduce stress and find success. A few resources you may need are

• more frequent meetings with your leader to align on priorities

• additional training so you can effectively take on new tasks

• extra budget so that you can deliver against raised expectations

• more autonomy to make decisions without having to talk with leadership

The better you can articulate what you need to succeed and advocate for those resources, the better positioned you will be for success.

Summary

One constant thing in business is change—your ability to flow like water when your organization changes will position you for success. One of the things that makes water so unique is its ability to take on the shape of whatever it is in. Employees who can metaphorize themselves to fit into whatever environment their organization puts them in position themselves for long and successful careers.

Peter Drunker once said, "One can not manage change. One can only be ahead of it." The best way to stay ahead of the changes in your organization is to clarify what your leadership expects from you, leverage your network, and get the resources you need to succeed. This will allow you to stay ahead of the curve and be prepared for what is coming next.

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Thank you for reading this blog

Dorian Cunion is an Executive Coach and Business Consultant with Your Path Coaching and Consulting. He is a former retail executive with over 20 years of experience in the retail industry. He is a Co-Active coach who focuses on helping professionals and small business owners overcome insecurities, knowledge gaps, and lack of direction. He does this by assisting clients to tap into their values, recognize their strengths, and develop actionable strategies for growth.

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Improve your Team Culture with this 15-minute routine.

Improving team culture is a challenge that is universal to all leaders. At their roots, teams work best with a shared purpose, good communication, and collaboration. Like a rowing team, everyone must have a cadence for working together and rowing in the same direction. One of the primary roles of a leader is to bring talented people together, create that cadence, provide guidance, and help them to achieve more together than they could apart. Implementing Recognition, Obstacle, and Win (ROW) meetings can help leaders achieve these goals. ROW meetings improve communication, encourage recognition and bring visibility to obstacles in a time-efficient and effective way.

ROW meetings are about developing a cadence for communicating the good and bad things happening in a business. These meetings are typically 15 to 20 minutes long. Each participant comes to the meeting prepared with a 2-minute recap of their week. The summary should include recognizing one person for doing a great job, one obstacle they needed help with, and one team win they wanted to celebrate. Since each participant only has 2 minutes, it forces them to be brief and only focus on the highlights. These recaps should mirror the trailer for a movie. The goal is to provide enough information for people to know what is happening in the person's area of responsibility. If anyone attending the meeting is interested in learning more, they can follow up after the meeting with questions or suggestions.

Recognition of Employees

One of the hallmarks of a good culture is recognition. Adam Grant and Francesa Gino's research has shown that expressions of gratitude can help build employees' self-efficacy and social worth, motivating them to engage in prosocial behavior. Thanking employees for a job well done is one of the best ways to improve a team's culture. Employees go to work every day, doing their job, and many never hear a thank you from their peers or boss. Organizational culture improves when leaders maintain a process for slowing down, considering the contributions made by those ad them, and expressing gratitude.

A supplemental benefit of this routine is how it supports people in getting to know each other. During group meetings, there is a tendency for some extroverts to dominate conversations and for everyone else to listen. The imbalance of communication can create group thinking and blind spots within a team. The two-minute target for each participant ensures that everyone has an equal opportunity to communicate. More value is generated during the meeting because there is a greater diversity of thought and inclusion of everyone's ideas.

Sharing of Obstacles

Each participant will share one obstacle they needed help solving. Initially, leaders might be uncomfortable voicing challenges if it is different from the norm within the organization. It is common for employees to be private about the barriers preventing their success until they have done everything possible to solve the issue independently. The hesitation to share challenges creates unneeded pressure within organizations and can slow down the removal of obstacles. By individuals being vulnerable in the group setting, other participants that have prior experience with similar obstacles can assist the person in need. In addition, when there is a commonality in challenges, participants can partner together to find solutions.

Obstacles are like weeds that prevent organizations from reaching their full potential. Employees within organizations do their best to pull weeds. Often the process is long and complex because employees need more tools, resources, and power to address complex issues. Managers are essential in getting employees the tools they need to overcome barriers. The ROW meetings provided a cadence for managers to check in with employees. As they inquire about challenges, they can provide tips and guidance for addressing opportunities. If they cannot solve the problem at their level, the manager can bring it to the meeting and seek advice and support from the team.

Celebrating Wins

The final segment of the recap is a review of wins for the week. Celebrating successes is essential for locking in learning. In Whitney Johnson's book Smart Growth, she evangelizes celebration's role in cementing lessons learned and strengthening relationships. Leaders work hard to drive results. Time must be allocated for them to feel the joy of their team's accomplishment. Sharing of wins provides examples of excellence for the broader group. It also creates opportunities for individuals to be more aware of success outside their direct business, which can both motivate and inspire others to greatness.

Talking about team wins during group meetings helps the team focus on the big picture. Most organizations operate in silos. For information to be shared, it has to flow up one silo to the leader and then back down another silo. The multiple communication points can be slow and weaken the benefit of the message. Often this results in team members focusing too much on their silo and not dedicating time or energy to thinking about what is vital for the overall organization. Good teammates care more about winning the game than their individual performance. By celebrating the wins generated across the different teams, the collective group can take pride in the overall organization's progress.

Insights

Weekly meetings can be an excellent way for a leader to do a temperature check with the team. When things are going well, meetings will be super positive, high energy, and upbeat. The organization will feel healthy, similar to a person with a 98 degrees temperature. When the obstacles are growing or when stress rises, the meeting will have a completely different feel. There will be more negativity. People will struggle more with finding and talking about wins. And the group will spend more time discussing obstacles. When this occurs, it will feel like the organization has a fever. Just as you would take an aspirin and get some rest at the first signs of a fever, it will be necessary for the leader to take steps to bring the team's temperature down collectively. The best way to address the tension is to recalibrate goals and verify that project timelines are realistic.

Summary

The ROW meeting approach can effectively establish a culture of recognition, positivity, and accountability within the team. It will ensure that every member of the team speaks during each meeting. It encouraged them to spend 66% of their time talking about positive events in the last week and only 33% of the time on obstacles. It challenges them to prioritize, summarize and be direct with their communications. Recaps will be 2 minutes, so there is not much fluff. Speakers must communicate what is essential and pass the spotlight to the next person.

The call will be engaging because multiple voices will be heard, and the topic of conversation will be focused on the remarkable things that are happening in the business. Team members will find it refreshing to get obstacles brought to the table, and the group will feel a greater sense of cohesion as they discuss ways to solve problems after the calls. Implementing this 15-minute-a-week routine can do a lot to improve the culture of an organization. The practices leaders establish say a lot about who they are and what is essential. Leaders who build routines around recognizing team members, capturing obstacles, and celebrating wins build a strong foundation of trust within their organization. The very trust needed to build a strong culture.

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Dorian Cunion is an Executive Business Coach with your Path Coaching and Consulting. He specializes in coaching services for managers, executives, and small business owners.

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If you are interested in working with me as a coach, contact me at

• Email: dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

• Phone: 804-220-5771

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